windows 7 - Overcoming the 1024 character limit with setx

I am trying to set environment variables using the setx command, such as follows

setx PATH "f:\common tools\git\bin;f:\common
tools\python\app;f:\common tools\python\app\scripts;f:\common
tools\ruby\bin;f:\masm32\bin;F:\Borland\BCC55\Bin;%PATH%"

However, I get the following error if the value is more then 1024 characters long:

WARNING: The data being saved is truncated to 1024 characters.

SUCCESS: Specified value was saved.

But some of the paths in the end are not saved in variable, I guess due to character limit as the error suggests.

Answer

Your best bet is to edit the registry directly.

Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment and edit the Path value (then reboot to activate the new value).

Note however that while you can enter a very long path, (up to the maximum environment variable length; 2,048 or 32,768 bytes depending on the source), not all software will be able to read and handle it correctly if it is too long.